How hot of a tune can I run with a stock engine?

thechoochlyman · Jun 17, 2016

The search function yielded no satisfactory results, so hopefully I'm not beating a dead horse.

Title says it all. No interest in upgrading injectors or turbo, since those things are quite expensive and I'm sure I can achieve satisfactory power in stock form.

Malone stage 2 recommends upgraded injectors, stage 3 recommends injectors and clutch. Are injectors recommended just for the sake of maximum power output? I'm also not afraid of roasting my clutch, as I don't intend to hot-rod it constantly. I'd just like to have the extra power available when required.

I'm already used to controlling my smoke level (in my truck) and mileage with my foot, so I'm not afraid of needing to do the same thing in my car. My power level is tolerable when I'm the only passenger and the AC is off. But put in three other people and crank the blower and it takes much longer to get up to speed than what I'd like.

~Update after Malone stage 3 chip installation 7-29-16~

Now that I've replaced my already-toasted clutch (it was slipping even when stock) and have broken the new one in a bit, I really think the Stage 3 is a great option for a stock engine. It only smokes if I really floor it beyond what it wants to take, and even then it doesn't smoke much. Running my IQ at 2.0 as well.

BleachedBora · Jun 17, 2016

We do stage 2 all the time on Mk3's with everything else being the same. Actually flashing one later this afternoon going to NM.

Injectors and a hybrid turbo you can get to stage 3. Anything beyond that requires a 3-bar MAP which on a Mk3 is super difficult.

-BB

vtpsd · Jun 17, 2016

BleachedBora said:
Injectors and a hybrid turbo you can get to stage 3. Anything beyond that requires a 3-bar MAP which on a Mk3 is super difficult.
-BB

I dont think a 3bar is super difficult. If you have a little fab and wiring and soldering ability its not too bad at all.

thechoochlyman · Jun 17, 2016

PM sent, Bora

Stromaluski · Jun 18, 2016

I'm running a Malone Stage 3 and DLC1019's on mine. The stock clutch was definitely not up to the task and I ended up putting a South Bend clutch in a few months later. Stock turbo is doing fine for now. I'll upgrade when the turbo starts having trouble.

tdidieselbobny · Jun 18, 2016

I'd say new nozzles and a tune,especially if nozzles are the originals.When I had my A3,PP520's and RC2 really woke the car up.

john.jackson9213 · Jun 18, 2016

Turn your boost up to 18.5 to 20 lbs. I used to run that boost with just Sprint 520 nozzles. TDTuning did that tune for me. Really kicked up the torque at the low end. I was limited at the high end by the stock turbo air flow with the B4V. A tuner should be able to dial up the stock injectors to provide more fuel to match the air.

Abacus · Jun 19, 2016

I work on a few cars locally that are running stage 3 with stock components. While it doesn't make use of the power possible, it was a nice upgrade and they're all set for adding injectors later.

thechoochlyman · Jun 19, 2016

john.jackson9213 said:
Turn your boost up to 18.5 to 20 lbs. I used to run that boost with just Sprint 520 nozzles. TDTuning did that tune for me. Really kicked up the torque at the low end. I was limited at the high end by the stock turbo air flow with the B4V. A tuner should be able to dial up the stock injectors to provide more fuel to match the air.

You mean I can do that myself? Or you mean have my chip programmar do that for me? Right now I can only hit about 14 psi before it falls down to like nine. N75 unplugged I can hit 20 easily.

Abacus said:
I work on a few cars locally that are running stage 3 with stock components. While it doesn't make use of the power possible, it was a nice upgrade and they're all set for adding injectors later.

I guess I could always increase my IQ to make it more drivable, right? Right now I have it set at 2.0.

john.jackson9213 · Jun 20, 2016

thechoochlyman said:
You mean I can do that myself? Or you mean have my chip programmar do that for me? <snip>

I should have said your tuner can do it for you. 18 to 18.5 lbs boost is regarded as the "safe" long term limit for your stock turbo. But with 250K miles on the stock tubo, I had no issue with pushing boost to 20 psi. Knew I was going to replace the turbo anyway. And the last 1 or 2 psi didn't make any real difference on the dyno anyway. We seemed to be right at the limit of the air the stock turbo could push. When I went to an 11 mm pump, I gained very little additional power at the top end. I did pick up 15/20 lb/ft of torque at the bottom. Peak torque was about 240-245 lb/ft at the front wheels with the stock turbo.

Abacus · Jun 20, 2016

thechoochlyman said:
You mean I can do that myself? Or you mean have my chip programmar do that for me? Right now I can only hit about 14 psi before it falls down to like nine. N75 unplugged I can hit 20 easily.
I guess I could always increase my IQ to make it more drivable, right? Right now I have it set at 2.0.

It's done through the tune. If you're at 2.0 for an IQ, you're maxed out already.

thechoochlyman · Jun 20, 2016

Yeah, if I turn on my 900 ohm EVRY it will drop to about 1.6 and start to lope a little bit.

thechoochlyman · Jun 23, 2016

Have any of you guys done the custom tune where you send in your VCDS boost logs? I was reading on Malone's website about it.

Also, is there a way to tell the car to not go into limp mode if the boost isn't reading what the requested value is? I ask because I have a fairly new N75, but if it goes bad again I may just opt to install an in-line needle valve to keep from overboosting.

oilhammer · Jun 23, 2016

thechoochlyman said:
The search function yielded no satisfactory results, so hopefully I'm not beating a dead horse.
Title says it all. No interest in upgrading injectors or turbo, since those things are quite expensive and I'm sure I can achieve satisfactory power in stock form.
Malone stage 2 recommends upgraded injectors, stage 3 recommends injectors and clutch. Are injectors recommended just for the sake of maximum power output? I'm also not afraid of roasting my clutch, as I don't intend to hot-rod it constantly. I'd just like to have the extra power available when required.
I'm already used to controlling my smoke level and mileage with my foot, so I'm not afraid of needing to do the same here. My power level is tolerable when I'm the only passenger and the AC is off. But put in three other people and crank the blower and I can barely make highway speed.

You may want to make certain your car is in good operating order STOCK before you do any power mods to it, because even the 90hp 1Z moving the big(ger) B4 shouldn't have any trouble dipping into the illegal side of the speedometer with a full load of people and cargo and A/C running.

After that, the engine and turbo are generally pretty tough on those cars, and you can easily run almost any "tune" with them up to one that causes the clutch to no longer hold. But you will almost certainly get a lot of smoke. If you say you are already driving it in a manner that you have to "control the smoke level", something IS probably wrong with your car. While the 1Z isn't the cleanest TDI, in stock form in good working order running ULSD fuel it shouldn't really be putting out any visible smoke in all but the hardest acceleration and even then you probably wouldn't "see" it from the driver's seat, just a slight haze at night from a car's headlights in your rearview mirror.

I have driven a bunch of those cars brand new, and countless others over the years. Even before the ULSD rollout, they were not smokers unless you modded them or something was wrong. Also, keep in mind that the OBD is not the most comprehensive on these early TDIs, so no MIL does not necessarily mean no problems. These things can run like complete crap and still not have a single DTC.

thechoochlyman · Jun 23, 2016

oilhammer said:
You may want to make certain your car is in good operating order STOCK before you do any power mods to it, because even the 90hp 1Z moving the big(ger) B4 shouldn't have any trouble dipping into the illegal side of the speedometer with a full load of people and cargo and A/C running.
After that, the engine and turbo are generally pretty tough on those cars, and you can easily run almost any "tune" with them up to one that causes the clutch to no longer hold. But you will almost certainly get a lot of smoke. If you say you are already driving it in a manner that you have to "control the smoke level", something IS probably wrong with your car. While the 1Z isn't the cleanest TDI, in stock form in good working order running ULSD fuel it shouldn't really be putting out any visible smoke in all but the hardest acceleration and even then you probably wouldn't "see" it from the driver's seat, just a slight haze at night from a car's headlights in your rearview mirror.
I have driven a bunch of those cars brand new, and countless others over the years. Even before the ULSD rollout, they were not smokers unless you modded them or something was wrong. Also, keep in mind that the OBD is not the most comprehensive on these early TDIs, so no MIL does not necessarily mean no problems. These things can run like complete crap and still not have a single DTC.

Sounds like I used poor wording in my original post... I'll try to clarify.

The car and engine are both in phenomenal shape right now - the only codes I'm getting (in VCDS) are for the unplugged EGR system. The engine acceleration is great under normal circumstances, and much better than it was when I bought it.

When I said I can barely make highway speed with a full car, I just meant it takes much longer to get up to speed than when it's only me. I can go as fast as I want, it just takes longer to get there than I want it to.

I wasn't referring to my car when I said I'm used to controlling smoke with my foot - I drive that way in my 1st gen Dodge. I was just saying I wouldn't mind having to do the same with my car if I had a tune that would be somewhat smoky at times. But obviously none of you would know that's what I meant, so I apologize for the confusion.

My car is very clean burning and I've never seen it make any visible smoke.

oilhammer · Jun 23, 2016

Cool, sounds like you are a good candidate for a "mild" tune/chip then. From my experience with the older TDIs like yours, that is what works best. Anything more, and you get maybe 5% more power but with 25% more smoke. The turbo is just so darn tiny they really can't get enough air through the engine, so the extra fueling doesn't really help.

thechoochlyman · Jun 23, 2016

Makes sense... I'm kinda back on the track of a stage two at this point. Middle of the road is always good. That way I'm set up for a turbo and sticks later if I want.

thechoochlyman · Jun 23, 2016

thechoochlyman said:
Have any of you guys done the custom tune where you send in your VCDS boost logs? I was reading on Malone's website about it.

Also, is there a way to tell the car to not go into limp mode if the boost isn't reading what the requested value is? I ask because I have a fairly new N75, but if it goes bad again I may just opt to install an in-line needle valve to keep from overboosting.

I'm going to rephrase that last question for clarity:

If I have a chip made - with the boost increased to 18.5 PSI - will I still go into limp mode if my N75 craps out? Could I potentially eliminate the N75 altogether later on if I wanted to?

EDIT: I also remembered that my MAF is flowing like 450 or so since I deleted the CCV. Should that cause a CEL on its own?

Digital Corpus · Jun 23, 2016

PM me is you aren't sure about the 3 bar MAP sensor. Its really easy, imho.

thechoochlyman · Jun 24, 2016

I've seen something about a 3 bar map sensor, but I'm not sure I'd need it with a stock turbo. I checked this morning and it was idling around 500 mg/s.

Steve Addy · Jun 27, 2016

So I'll post this here since I don't see a reason to start a new thread regarding tuning chips.

I received and installed my Rocketchip RC2 today and it's great! It has really super pull in the lower rpm range right up and through 2200ish rpm where I get a boost issue, fault code 00575 - intake manifold pressure 17-00 control difference.

The bits I've read so far suggest that there might be a leak somewhere in the piping, probably with the couplers / spring clamps. A post in the B5 forum said to run a log of channel 11 to see what it's reading. Any other advice would be appreciated.

I'll run the log tomorrow, in the meantime I'll price out better clamps....lol

Steve

GTiTDi · Jun 28, 2016

a leaky clamp would be very noticeable; It would be prudent to check the hose in the ecu if you haven't already.....

Steve Addy said:
So I'll post this here since I don't see a reason to start a new thread regarding tuning chips.

I received and installed my Rocketchip RC2 today and it's great! It has really super pull in the lower rpm range right up and through 2200ish rpm where I get a boost issue, fault code 00575 - intake manifold pressure 17-00 control difference.

The bits I've read so far suggest that there might be a leak somewhere in the piping, probably with the couplers / spring clamps. A post in the B5 forum said to run a log of channel 11 to see what it's reading. Any other advice would be appreciated.

I'll run the log tomorrow, in the meantime I'll price out better clamps....lol

Steve

Steve Addy · Jun 28, 2016

GTiTDi said:
a leaky clamp would be very noticeable; It would be prudent to check the hose in the ecu if you haven't already.....

ECU hose has been replaced, all hoses to N75 and N18 have been replaced. Basically all hoses have been renewed.

I'm going to guess at this point that either the N75 isn't happy (it's not new) or the waste gate is having an issue (that it didn't have before).

I manipulated the WG before reinstalling the assembly and it seemed fine, not sure what changed between stock tune and RC2. It wasn't throwing any codes before the tune was installed. That's one reason I decided it was time for a tune, it seemed like there weren't any codes and setup was operating very well.

This is on the B3V wagon btw, that's really just a disguised 98 Jetta...

Steve

Smileypanda · Jun 28, 2016

I'm running RC2 on stock injectors stock turbo stock clutch etc. It really helped widen the torque when I put my foot down throughout the rpm range. No smoke before, no smoke now. Replacing the ECU (including the one from the pipe to the ECU) and EGR vac lines solved my 575 and MAF codes, fwiw.

Steve Addy · Jun 28, 2016

Well as I said the hoses are all new...as in ALL new. Oddly enough I apparently crossed the boost pressure hose and the waste gate hose at the N75. Not really sure how I did that but it happened. Unfortunately correcting that didn't seem to make any difference, I'm still getting the 00575 code at around 2200rpm with close to WOT. Waste gate moves freely too.

I tried to log 11 via basic settings, had it all setup to go and triggered it as I got on to the freeway. When the fault triggered I reached over and stopped the logging function. Unfortunately when I got back to the house and triggered the screen saver vcds said there was no data available. The file also didn't have anything but commas in it...not happy about that, I'll have to wait until later to try again, traffic way too busy to be trying to generate logs.

Steve

GTiTDi · Jun 28, 2016

if it's an old N75 buy a new one

Steve Addy · Jun 28, 2016

GTiTDi said:
if it's an old N75 buy a new one

Don't know, it came with the engine setup from the #1 98 Mk3. I didn't notice anything odd in the way it operates, it clicks along just like the identical one did on the on the 97 Mk3. I replaced that one as suspicious but it wasn't the problem.

I swapped in the known new one from the 97 Mk3 and got the same result.

I checked the waste gate actuator and it moves fine with pressure, diaphragm seems fine, no hissing or noise.

I'm running out of ideas. I went to log channel 11 in basic settings and I can get there and see it but when I go to drive and start logging the information in the boxes switches to 'Error 11 information unavailable' or some such similar wording the minute rpms go above 1500, so I can't do the logging that I thought might help.

I might have to ask Jeff about this and see what his thoughts are. I'm really not happy if this ends up being a detuning chip...that's not what I was after...

Steve

thechoochlyman · Jun 29, 2016

Smileypanda said:
I'm running RC2 on stock injectors stock turbo stock clutch etc. It really helped widen the torque when I put my foot down throughout the rpm range. No smoke before, no smoke now.

See, this is kind of why I want to go RC3. I'm not trying to make my car blow smoke, but you know you're right at your stock hardware limit when it starts to puff a little bit on a hard acceleration.

Steve Addy · Jun 29, 2016

thechoochlyman said:
See, this is kind of why I want to go RC3. I'm not trying to make my car blow smoke, but you know you're right at your stock hardware limit when it starts to puff a little bit on a hard acceleration.

The only thing the smoke tells you is that you have excess fuel for the quantity of air, it doesn't tell you why though.

If you're thinking about going with a different turbo and larger injectors then by all means consider the RC3 and comparable offerings from other vendors. For me I'm not going to do any of those things so the RC2 is perfect. I just wanted better out of what I have, I'm winding down my garage time for other things and that's why RC2 is the best choice for me.

As for my RC2 install it appears I can't read a hose routing diagram even twice.

I replaced the ECU hose (that was new) with a piece of rigid FI return line and then replaced the run outside the ECU with nylon tubing with short rubber connections at the end. I did this also for the N75 valve routing except for the ambient air line from the intake tube.

Besides that, and getting my connections at the N75 right this time, I didn't make any further changes. It seems to work great now.

Steve

thechoochlyman · Jun 30, 2016

Steve Addy said:
The only thing the smoke tells you is that you have excess fuel for the quantity of air, it doesn't tell you why though.

Of course... but if you know everything's in good shape, then a little smoke just means it's time for a bigger turbo!

Steve Addy said:
If you're thinking about going with a different turbo and larger injectors then by all means consider the RC3 and comparable offerings from other vendors. For me I'm not going to do any of those things so the RC2 is perfect. I just wanted better out of what I have, I'm winding down my garage time for other things and that's why RC2 is the best choice for me.

I might do those things later... never know for sure. I just got off the phone with Jeff though, and he sounded confident that an RC3 will do me just fine. If it smokes a lot, I'm sure I can compensate with my IQ. It's set to 2.0 right now, so I have plenty of wiggle room.

Steve Addy said:
As for my RC2 install it appears I can't read a hose routing diagram even twice.

I replaced the ECU hose (that was new) with a piece of rigid FI return line and then replaced the run outside the ECU with nylon tubing with short rubber connections at the end. I did this also for the N75 valve routing except for the ambient air line from the intake tube.

Besides that, and getting my connections at the N75 right this time, I didn't make any further changes. It seems to work great now.

Steve

Glad to hear that you got it back up and running! I have almost brand new silicone lines and an N75, so I should be set. I actually put a nylon windshield fluid tube in my ECU before I got the silicone, but I can change that again when my new chips get here.

How hot of a tune can I run with a stock engine?

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